Advance IT – Shift to

Continuous Delivery

To Fund Digital, IT Needs a New Playbook

IT teams are struggling to drive grow-the-business Digital initiatives while still “keeping the lights on.” Their search for answers often leads them to Continuous Delivery, which promises the panacea of speed, quality, and efficiency. Despite this allure, it can be difficult to implement.

Common roadblocks include cultural constructs, disparate charters and KPIs that keep teams in silos, the absence of a coherent strategy, and the lack of ability to overcome physical constructs, such as office spaces that are not conducive to collaboration.

Three Common Challenges IT Faces

1

Many IT organizations have developers in one group, testing teams in another, and operations in a third—each with different goals, toolsets, and target operating models.

2

Agile productivity gains on the development side are too often lost through siloed, process-laden testing procedures.

3

Multiple technology stacks crimp the potential benefits of end-to-end automation of the IT Lifecycle.

Your customers expect continuous service, and the core of IT needs its own continuous model to stay relevant to the business. The following sections will help you along your journey to Continuous Delivery.

Optimize IT – Shift to

Continuous Delivery

An integrated operations model delivers three key business outcomes: it optimizes cost, improves delivery speed and increases quality. This model is built on a sequential, end-to-end vision that spans the service life cycle. 1) Start at requirements and not at run; design operability requirements into the service from the beginning. 2) Move a smaller set of changes through life cycle mapping to shorten release cycles. 3) Build scripts to glue the life cycle together. 4) Automate the entire life cycle, including error-prone processes, to achieve repeatability. 5) Integrate and choose tools together across multiple services. 6) Use repurposed tool sets to produce an end-to-end view of services. By implementing lean tactics across technology processes and providing complete visibility into the supply chain, this model helps reduce business risks and create a predictable supply chain.

2

Create a culture of full-stack engineers

As development teams onboard Agile methodologies and DevOps approaches, they gain greater efficiency and accelerate their workloads. However, with operations and development working in different silos, the productivity gains on the development side are too often lost through siloed, process-laden testing procedures. Engineers must be able to fluidly switch between development, testing and operations. Each company and IT landscape will be unique, but it is imperative that skill breadth is valued as highly as skill depth; and development of future skills takes high priority. For engineers to work as a unified team throughout the full life cycle—from design, to development, to production—they must embrace the “full stack.”

3

Adopt a platform that accelerates automation

Achieving the promise of continuous delivery requires a solution that enables a flexible assembly of application management, testing and operations services—all managed through a single platform. Mindtree’s CAPE platform integrates development and testing environment setup and management, plus support and release management. Standardizing and automating traditional IT services across a platform-based operating model enables companies to manage IT, like a predictable supply chain.

Whether you are focused on more efficiently running your core operations or you are looking to create breakthrough growth via Digital technology—transforming your IT organization to a Continuous Delivery culture will be the foundation for driving both of those results within budget, with fast time-to-market.